Abstract
Ethical debates about assisted dying typically assume that only medical professionals should be able to provide patients with assisted dying. This assumption partially rests on the unstated principle that assisted dying providers may not be motivated by pecuniary considerations. Here I outline and defend a mixed provider model of assisted dying provision that contests this principle. Under this model, medically competent non-physician professionals could receive fees for providing assisted dying under the same terms and conditions as physicians can in those jurisdictions where medically assisted dying is lawful. The mixed provider model blunts objections to assisted dying rooted in supposed clashes with medical values. In addition to generating a market likely to expand access to assisted dying, the mixed provider model would not create markets that are unjust because they are “noxious” in Satz’ sense or because they raise “semiotic” concerns about the value of human life.
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Notes
- 1.
Crisp (1987) proposes to call these professionals ‘telostricians’, corresponding to the Greek terms for ‘end’ and ‘artisan’.
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Acknowledgements
I gratefully acknowledge the useful feedback I received on an earlier version of this chapter from Christopher Cowley, Peter Schaber, Tatjana von Solodkoff, Isra Black, Naomi Richards, and other participants at a workshop on Ethical Issues of Non-physician Assisted Suicide held at University College, Dublin. The Society for Applied Philosophy generously sponsored the workshop.
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Cholbi, M. (2023). Envisioning Markets in Assisted Dying. In: Cholbi, M., Varelius, J. (eds) New Directions in the Ethics of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia. The International Library of Bioethics, vol 103. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25315-7_15
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